General.

Mills, Arthur.—Colonial Constitutions: An Outline of the existing forms of Government in the British Dependencies. 8vo. Pp.65. London: Edward Stanford, 1891. (Price 1s.) [Presented by the Publishers.]

To supply the want of short compendious information concerning the present political constitution of the British dependencies is the main object of the author in issuing this brief abstract of his work, which was originally published in 1856. The author adopts the five great divisions of the world—Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia—as the most convenient basis for the general classification of the British dependencies, both continental and insular, the latter being grouped with that class with which their geographical position most obviously connects them; for instance, Mauritius and St. Helena are regarded as African, and the West Indies and the Falkland Islands as part of the American group. The author traces the progress of responsible Government since it began about fifty years ago, and states that "responsible government has now been established, for good or evil, in all our groups of Colonies which have been and are fields for British settlement and enterprise." In making this assertion he appears to forget the existence of the West Indies and Natal, both of which may be considered as, and are, fields for British settlement and enterprise. After referring to the development of self-government in the Colonies, the author deals with the question of Imperial Federation, which he describes as the last new "notion" which has cropped up for binding together the Colonies we have planted, and which we have gathered under our rule. Mr. Mills is not an advocate for Imperial Federation, but upholds that it is on the condition of maintaining and expanding the principle of self-government, and on that condition alone, that we can hope to maintain a desirable political union with our distant dependencies.